


Salt and Pepper

by LGreymark



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bot Vex, F/M, Top Percy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 18:01:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8295005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LGreymark/pseuds/LGreymark
Summary: Dying seemed easy, just a release, it’s little wonder that waking up from death would be much, much harder. Both on the body, and the mind.Percy realizes that there is nothing in life worth more than Vex'ahlia, and from that realization comes a life changing attitude alteration, and perhaps a world saving decision.-:-Spoilers; Ep68-71ishA slight AU where Vox Machina delays their plans to hunt Vorugal long enough for Percy to recover from Resurrection Sickness.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers; Ep68-71ish
> 
> A slight AU where Vox Machina delays their plans to hunt Vorugal long enough for Percy to recover from Resurrection Sickness.

He woke thrashing, his body tangled in cotton sheets, hand gripped around the butt of his pistol, Orthax’s visage in his mind’s eye. When he saw the carved ceiling of his bedchambers in Whitestone he understood the reality of his dream. That shade of what had tormented him in what passed for an afterlife continued to do so even now.

He relaxed by degrees, staring at every shadow in the room for an indeterminate period of time. Ensuring that each and every one was permeable and still. Devoid of the malice and cruelty that were Orthax’s hallmarks. 

When at last he was satisfied that the room was empty save for his own shallow breaths he kicked free of the tangled sheets and sat up with his feet on the chilly stone floors. Every night, every single night the shade of that demon returned to him in his dreams, breaking his sleep asunder with terror and pain. He groaned as a more earthly pain flushed through his body, a stark reminder of the fact that not a week hence, he’d been dead. 

The very thought of it sent a shiver through him. Quite aside from the pain of his dreams which was, at it’s worst, blurry and indistinct. He remembered _vividly_ the feeling of Ripley’s bullets piercing his body. He’d probably never forget.

Grunting sharply at the effort he rose to standing and groaned again, shaking out his limbs in the cool air, trying to dispel the lingering stiffness and pain that followed him like the world’s most loyal dog. He eyeballed the window for a moment, trying to gauge the time of night by the color of the sky, it’s pitch darkness suggested sometime after midnight, probably in the wee hours of the morning. 

Percy glanced disdainfully at the fireplace, the timber long ago burnt to ash, no wonder the room was chilly. Not for the first, or even the second or third time, second guessed his decision to refuse the servants the chance to follow around after him, lighting fires in the night and cleaning his quarters. If he was honest with himself (which he made a point of being as often as possible) it was because he didn’t trust them. He barely trusted anyone anymore. 

A quick, if stiff, motion stowed the pistol in the hanging holster by the door, which he promptly donned over his shoulder and around his waist, the butt of the pistol poking up over his belt. Even in in the De Rolo castle in Whitestone he didn’t feel safe without at least one of his guns by his side. Next came a pair of loose linen trousers and a cotton shirt, just enough to ward off the chill.

He didn’t need a candle or lantern to traverse his home. It was dark, uncannily so, but familiar enough that he only needed a hand brushing the cool stone walls to guide him. The kitchens would be warm at this time of night, a place where he could get something hot to ward off the ache in his bones, both from cold and injury, and find some peace. 

-:-

With a fortifying cup of tea in his hand, sweet and strong, he made his way to the roof of his family’s seat. The various towers and buttresses that made up the fortifications of the castle sprawled out around the central keep and rise of the main building. It was a confusing but oddly traditional structure, mostly oblong with angular fortifications jutting out to create strong points on the otherwise flat surface of the walls. Such was the architecture that there was no wall that couldn’t be defended from at least two angles, an ancient defense against scaling ladders and sappers at the base of the walls. 

The De Rollos had a mostly peaceful history, barring their encounter with the Briarwoods, and the fortress had never been tested, and Percy wondered if it ever would. The kinds of enemies that assailed his home were not of mortal ken. Were not armies coming to loot and pillage, or conquer. They were vampires, dragons, abominations of sorcery and eldritch demons from the fey and other planes of demesne. 

Not the kinds of things this majestic castle was built to fend off. His mind was something like this castle, fortified with tradition and majesty. Honor, form and function making up the ordered pathways of his mind. Against the otherworldly horror tearing at his psyche though, he had no defense. 

The peak of Whitestone Castle was a sloped roof ringed with a narrow balcony fortified with crenellations. It lent a view of the entire city including the surrounding farmland and forests which was rather breathtaking. At this time of night the city was lit with thousands of tiny fires from where the town watch patrolled the streets and survivors of the Briarwoods’ purge camped in the ruins of their homes. 

His home was such a good metaphor for his mental state, broken, ravaged by forces not of this world and then freed from torment. Only to find that it was still broken, shards of structure and precision lying shattered and ground to dust. There was hope though, the people of the city lived, the city itself was alive, just like him. And it could be rebuilt, just like him.

He was wrenched from his musing rather abruptly by a concerned voice piercing through the air.

“Brother? What are you doing up here at this time of night?”

Cassandra, of all the people in the castle he least expected her to find him in a time of need. He gave her a wan smile, trying to deflect the inevitable with a feeble parry of his voice.

“Contemplating the reconstruction of Whitestone sister. There is so very much left to do.”

She frowned at him utterly unfazed by his, honestly pathetic, attempt to derail her intent.

“And how go you after your reconstruction brother? They barely told me anything, you left whole, returned broken, and were walking around again with barely an explanation said crosswise. What _happened_ to you?”

They, such an impersonal term for his friends, spoken with bitterness and… jealousy? The people who had supported him and aided him for years now didn’t deserve his sister’s scorn. But he didn’t have the energy to argue with her right now, he barely had the energy for the coming discussion. 

“Ripley happened to me Cassandra. She set a trap, we walked right into it, I… I died.”

He paused and turned to her fully, finally tearing his gaze away from the skyline for good.

“And my friends brought be back to life through ritual. I am _here_ sister. Because of Pike, because of Keylith and Vax’ildan. Because of Grog and Scanlan… because of Vex’ahlia.”

He huffed, unprepared for the rush of strength just saying her _name_ gave him. Always the scientist he said it again, for observation purposes you see.

“Because of Vex’ahlia. Because of Vox Machina I am here and that’s all you should ever need Cassandra, that I’m here.”

Her frown deepened and he resisted the urge to sigh loudly, settling for a quiet one instead as her own voice rose in both volume and pitch.

“I think it must have slipped your mind _Percival_ but I’m the lady of this castle, and you are my brother. That makes you it’s lord until such time as you pass the mantle on to your son one day. And being the _lord_ of a castle comes with certain responsibilities. One of those is being around to keep **being** a lord.”

He frowned at her, unhappy with the route her tirade was taking. There were things he had to do; he couldn’t just abandon these people, his friends, his _family_ , to their task, to his task. It bothered him in that moment, that they were more his family than the woman in front of him. 

“If you die out there with your friends, chasing after dragons and revenge, and there’s no one to bring you back, how are you going to be here for your _people_? The people of Whitestone deserve better than that. They’ve suffered much and they need leadership Percival, they need us.”

She turned to the parapet and rested her hands on it with the elegant grace of a true De Rolo daughter. Though they were clenched into white-knuckled fists at the time.

“At some point you’re going to have to make a decision brother, about what is more important to you, this city, or those… _people_.”

He bristled at that, and understood immediately what the issue was, they were beneath him, beneath them, somehow and that riled her more than anything else. That he would taint his associations with _commoners_. The irony, that perhaps she didn’t even know yet, was that he’d titled Vex’ahlia in their city. She was as common as he was now.

Never mind Keylith, who would be a queen, or thereabouts, of her people one day, and Vax’ildan, who was basically the earthly representative of his god. Though admittedly the rest were somewhat ragtag. Pike came from a line of reformed criminals, Grog was… Grog, and Scanlan was a womanising troubadour. 

He wondered if it was a result of her imprisonment that she had turned so cold. But he didn’t remember the Cassandra of his youth being so… aloof. He opened his mouth to speak but she’d already turned away for the stairs. He thought to call after her but she spoke before he could as she descended.

“You’re my brother Percival, you always will be. But I wonder sometimes if you remember that I’m your sister. Your family.”

As she vanished from sight he sagged against the parapet, sinking to sit on the chilly stones with his mostly undrunk cup of tea cradled between trembling hands. Who was his family? Was it his lone remaining blood relative who wanted him to abandon his position in Vox Machina and the relationships therein to be a lord in Whitestone, or was it the group of friends who he regularly followed into danger, literally into life threatening situations. But had supported and protected him for the better part of five years now?

An image of Vex’ahlia’s laughing face superimposed itself over his mind’s eye and he felt a curl of warmth in his breast. He let out a surprised little laugh and muttered to himself.

“Well that answers that question.”

-:-

Morning dawned and fell somewhat flat. It wasn’t overly cold, for Whitestone’s standards at any rate. The sky was covered in clouds, but they weren’t threatening rain or storm, and while there was wind, it was barely enough to ruffle his collar as he strode through the gardens in an attempt to wake up a bit.

He hadn’t ended up going back to bed, the promise of more night terrors was more than his fragile state of buoyed determination could handle. Since he’d… come back, he hadn’t felt like himself. Like there was a vital part of his being that was just, absent. Now though that old fire, the fervor in his soul that had driven him to wipe out the Briarwoods had returned. Now though it wasn’t vengeful in origin, but protective. Vex’ahlia was a part of his heart now, he couldn’t deny it to himself anymore than he could claim he had no legs. The fact that he could walk around and function was evidence of both facts. He trusted her like he trusted no one else in Exandria. Her word was all he needed, if she said the sky was purple then if he was made curious enough by the declaration to look, then the ruddy sky would be purple.

She was a part of his home now, she was titled and he rather thought that even if she didn’t like that as much as she did, she still wouldn’t abandon that simply to avoid insulting him by the action. She was in his life and he would do everything in his power to keep her around for as long as possible. If all she ever wanted from him was friendship, then he would accept that.

But he was also Percival Frederickstien Von Musel Klossowski De Rolo III and he wasn’t one to give up without a fight. The simple fact of the matter was they Vox Machina was embroiled in a fight to the death with the Chroma Conclave. Before long one or the other would be wiped out.

Now Percival was a betting man, and he knew the odds of them getting out of this whole thing in one piece were surprisingly good. They had Pike, who was a phenomenal asset. They had a kinship and level of teamwork that was, so far, unparalleled. They had overcome everything the world had put in their way. Challenge after challenge had been shot, hacked, scorched and stabbed down until they were walking on a bloody trail made from the corpses of the beings who had tried to oppose them.

They were a force to be reckoned with in Exandria, people who knew them either respected their power, or lived to regret it. And the people who didn’t know them, and that they encountered, either didn’t live at all, or joined the first group. But even as strong as they were, as formidable as Grog’s axe, as deadly as Vax’ildan’s blades, true as Vex’halia’s arrows and so on. As potent as they were, they were up against forces that could conceivably wipe them and their families off the map.

So his life in this world, Vex’ahlia’s life in this world, was not concrete. Was not immutable or set in stone. She or he could die, for good, and he would never know her laugh again. That was simply unacceptable. So he would protect her, love her, from afar if necessary. But he would not let her fall. And he would do his utmost to live.

Not only for her, but for Whitestone, and for Vox Machina, and for Cassandra, annoying and superior as she was. His life had new meaning, no more would he be a vessel for revenge, he would now be a fount of hope and strength for as long as his limbs had fire.

Affirmed of his decision, his fate, he nodded to himself and, like a finely dressed tide, swept towards his future.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all. First fic on this site. Just testing the waters to see how this gets received. If there’s interest I’ll keep posting until interest wanes. Hell I might keep posting anyway.
> 
> This is a strictly Perc’ahlia fic. In terms of Percy/Vex anyway, there will be no other ship for those two. But Pike/Grog and Vaxleth will pop up from time to time.


End file.
